A travers cette thèse, nous nous intéressons au secteur industriel du textile. Les acteurs de ce secteur, qui se caractérise souvent par des chaînes logistiques internationales, doivent s’adapter à une demande dynamique pour des produits de courte durée de vie. Ces spécificités renforcent la nécessité de s’imposer dans un environnement très concurrentiel par une maîtrise des coûts et des ressources de production et logistique ainsi que par une bonne connaissance du marché auquel il faut savoir sans cesse s’adapter. Dans cette thèse, en s’inspirant du contexte d’un industriel tunisien du textile, nous nous focalisons sur l’optimisation, par la programmation mathématique, de la planification de la production et de la distribution des produits. Ces décisions reviennent à l’industriel qui fournit des clients nationaux et internationaux. Il s’engage auprès d’eux à répondre à deux types de commandes : (i) des commandes de mise en place des collections à venir, souvent de délais longs et (ii) des commandes de réassort, souvent de délais très courts, pour les collections en cours de vente. Nous proposons une méthode de planification qui optimise, à la fois, les décisions de production et de distribution de produits. Cette méthode se caractérise par une anticipation d’une certaine flexibilité dans le plan de production tactique pour mieux absorber les commandes de réassort dans le plan opérationnel. Grâce aux données fournies par notre partenaire industriel, nous étions en mesure de démontrer qu’une telle approche permet des économies de coûts remarquables, allant jusqu’à 10% pour le cas étudié. Nous supposons dans un second temps qu’un accord de partenariat permettait à l’industriel d’avoir accès à l’information sur l’évolution de la demande pour les produits en cours de vente chez ses clients. Il peut alors mobiliser cette information pour établir des modèles de prévision et les utiliser pour anticiper au mieux la flexibilité a priori des plannings de production. Sous cette hypothèse, nous démontrons que l’industriel peut réaliser un gain sur les coûts totaux d’environ 15%. Le travail de cette thèse a trouvé une application et une validation grâce aux données fournies par un acteur de l’industrie du textile. Nous montrons néanmoins qu’il est largement valable pour des contextes industriels différents. / Through this thesis, we are interested in the textile industry. The actors in this field of industry, which is often characterized by global supply chains, must adapt to a dynamic demand for short-life-cycle products. These characteristics reinforce the need to be imperative in a highly competitive environment by controlling costs and resources of production and logistics and by having a good knowledge of the market to which it is necessary to constantly know how to adapt. In this thesis, basing on the context of a Tunisian textile industry, we focus on production and distribution planning using mathematical programming. These decisions are made by the manufacturer who provides local and overseas retailers. He is fully committed to meet two types of orders: (i) pre-season orders of future collections, often with a large delivery lead time and (ii) replenishment orders, often with shorter due dates, occurring over the season to fill in stock outs or to replace unsold products. We propose an integrated planning method that optimizes both the production and distribution decisions. This method is characterized by an anticipation of some flexibility in the tactical production plan to better place the unplanned and urgent newly arrived demands at the operational level. Using the data provided by our industrial partner, we were able to demonstrate that such an approach allows remarkable cost savings, reaching 10% for the cases studied. Then, we assume that a partnership agreement has allowed the manufacturer to follow the evolution of demand information concerning the products being sold to their retailers. They can then use this information to build forecast model to anticipate at best the flexibility a priori of production plans. Under this assumption, we demonstrate that a cost cutting of 15% is attained. The work of this thesis was validated by data provided by a Tunisian textile-apparel company. We show, however, that it can be widely applied to different industrial contexts.

A travers cette thèse, nous nous intéressons au secteur industriel du textile. Les acteurs de ce secteur, qui se caractérise souvent par des chaînes logistiques internationales, doivent s'adapter à une demande dynamique pour des produits de courte durée de vie. Ces spécificités renforcent la nécessité de s'imposer dans un environnement très concurrentiel par une maîtrise des coûts et des ressources de production et logistique ainsi que par une bonne connaissance du marché auquel il faut savoir sans cesse s'adapter. Dans cette thèse, en s'inspirant du contexte d'un industriel tunisien du textile, nous nous focalisons sur l'optimisation, par la programmation mathématique, de la planification de la production et de la distribution des produits. Ces décisions reviennent à l'industriel qui fournit des clients nationaux et internationaux. Il s'engage auprès d'eux à répondre à deux types de commandes : (i) des commandes de mise en place des collections à venir, souvent de délais longs et (ii) des commandes de réassort, souvent de délais très courts, pour les collections en cours de vente. Nous proposons une méthode de planification qui optimise, à la fois, les décisions de production et de distribution de produits. Cette méthode se caractérise par une anticipation d'une certaine flexibilité dans le plan de production tactique pour mieux absorber les commandes de réassort dans le plan opérationnel. Grâce aux données fournies par notre partenaire industriel, nous étions en mesure de démontrer qu'une telle approche permet des économies de coûts remarquables, allant jusqu'à 10% pour le cas étudié. Nous supposons dans un second temps qu'un accord de partenariat permettait à l'industriel d'avoir accès à l'information sur l'évolution de la demande pour les produits en cours de vente chez ses clients. Il peut alors mobiliser cette information pour établir des modèles de prévision et les utiliser pour anticiper au mieux la flexibilité a priori des plannings de production. Sous cette hypothèse, nous démontrons que l'industriel peut réaliser un gain sur les coûts totaux d'environ 15%. Le travail de cette thèse a trouvé une application et une validation grâce aux données fournies par un acteur de l'industrie du textile. Nous montrons néanmoins qu'il est largement valable pour des contextes industriels différents.

The goal of the Master´s thesis is to analyse operations of the company dealing with the production of plastic and wooden windows and to focus on production organization and distribution and to suggest improvements measures. The Master´s thesis concentrates on production analysis and distribution of company WindowStar s.r.o which is one of the daughter companies of Austrian holding D.E.I.N. Haus. Company WindowStar s.r.o. resides in Planá nad Lužnicí and deals exclusively with the production of plastic and wooden windows. There are frequent changes of trends at purchasing windows, competition in this branch is great and therefore the company has necessarily to increase its competitiveness and financial stability. Analysing the production and distribution there were found out some places possible to be improved. Afterwards there were suggested particular measures leading to savings. I recommend the company to change buyer of plastic waste and non-congruous plastic products, further, to make a trim-to-size plan for cutting aluminium both for plastic and wooden windows. Finally, I suggest changing the supplier of glazing slats necessary for production of wooden windows and giving more effort to negotiations and cooperation with suppliers.

This thesis discusses the advertising market in the Czech Republic and focuses on different kinds and forms of commercials and their market reach. It also brings the differences between film and advertising productions. The practical part is devoted to a particular production company and a description of circumstances that enabled it to become a recognized advertising production. Through interviews and participant observation brings the creation of three specific commercials. Finally, it describes the main aspects of successful advertising campaigns and the circumstances of its creation.

In today's competitive market place, all the components of a supply chain must be well coordinated to achieve economic and service goals. This dissertation is devoted to the modeling, analysis, and development of solution approaches for some logistics problems with emphasis on coordination of various supply chain components and decisions. Specifically, we have addressed four problems in this domain that span various decision levels. The first problem deals with integrated production and shipping scheduling for a single manufacturer and multiple customers. We develop an optimum-seeking algorithm and a fast heuristic, both of which exploit structural properties of the problem. The second problem is a joint production and delivery scheduling problem in which a single vendor supplies goods to a single buyer over a finite horizon. We model this multi-period problem by using a dynamic programming framework and develop an effective Lagrange multiplier method for the solution of the single-period problem, which is then used to solve the multi-period problem. We show that the optimal shipments in each period follow a pattern of geometric-then-equal sizes except for the last shipment, which may be of a larger size. We also show that an optimal solution for the infinite horizon problem can be derived as a special case of our finite horizon approach. In addition, we propose two fast heuristic methods, which, as we show, can obtain almost optimal solutions. We also address the design and logistics operation of biomass feedstock supply chain. To that end, we consider two problems. The first of these problems arises in the context of delivering biomass sorghum to a biorefinery. We propose multi-period, mixed integer linear programming models, which prescribe the strategic and tactical logistics decisions. Our aim is to investigate different logistical configurations available in a sorghum biomass feedstock logistics system. The second of these problems further allows sharing of loadout equipment among storage facilities. We develop an efficient Benders decomposition-based algorithm, and also, two heuristic methods that are capable of effectively solving large-scale instances. We also show the advantage of using mobile equipment. / Doctor of Philosophy / Invariably, logistics cost constitutes a significant portion of the total cost incurred in operating a supply chain. In today’s fierce market competition, it is imperative to reduce this cost to a maximum extent. To that end, our work in this dissertation is devoted to the modeling, analysis, and development of solution approaches for some supply chain problems with the aim of reducing logistics cost. Specifically, we address four problems that span strategic-, tactical- and operational-level decisions in supply chain optimization. The first problem that we address deals with integrated production and shipping scheduling for a single manufacturer and multiple customers. Our aim is to integrate the production and shipping functions of a manufacturer for the objective of minimizing the sum of the shipping cost and the penalty incurred for late deliveries. We develop an optimum-seeking algorithm and a fast heuristic both of which exploit structural properties of the problem. The results of our computational investigation reveal efficacy of our approaches and a significant benefit that accrues from integrating the production and distribution functions. In the second problem, we address a joint production and delivery scheduling problem in which a single vendor supplies goods to a single buyer over a finite horizon. The vendor’s production rate and buyer’s demand rate can vary from period to period and are known in advance. The objective is to determine a production/shipment schedule that minimizes the total cost of production setup, shipment of orders, and holding of inventory at both the vendor and the buyer. We model this problem as a dynamic program, each stage of which constitutes a single-period problem with prescribed starting and ending inventory levels. We develop an effective approach for the solution of this single-period problem, which is then embedded within the dynamic programming framework. We show that the optimal shipments in each period follow a pattern of geometric-then-equal sizes except for the last shipment, which may be larger in size. We show that an optimal solution for the infinite horizon problem can be obtained as a special case of our finite horizon approach. In addition, we propose two fast heuristic methods, which, as we show, can obtain almost optimal solutions. For the third problem, we aim to address the design and operation of a biomass feedstock supply chain. We first present a comprehensive taxonomic literature review of the work in this area that exploits the operations research (OR) methodologies. Then, we study sorghum-biomass-to-biofuel logistics supply chain, and call it as a sorghum biomass feedstock logistics system (S-BFLS). We propose a multi-period, mixed integer linear programming model which prescribes the strategic locations and sizes of storage facilities, number of equipments to purchase, and allocation of farms to satellite storage facilities (SSLs), as well as tactical decisions including period-to-period biomass transportation flows and period-to-period biomass inventory plans. We study a wide spectrum of available harvest, preprocessing, transportation, and storage options as a part of the sorghum biomass feedstock logistics system. We have also investigated the option of just-in-time (JIT) delivery in conjunction with regular delivery, and call it as a hybrid delivery system. Our model is applied to a real-life-inspired case. Based on our analysis, the most cost-effective S-BFLS consists of forage-chopping for harvesting, bunkers or bags for ensiling, and hybrid delivery. Ensiling by modules is not found to be as cost-effective as by bags or bunkers due to the occurrence of high equipment ownership cost and operating cost. Compression of biomass is also not found to be cost-effective. It incurs extra equipment ownership and operating costs while not amounting to sufficient reduction in transportation cost because of the requirement of over 50% moisture content for ensiling. Forage-chop harvest and whole-stalk harvest have little difference in economic effectiveness. The hybrid delivery system is found to be effective since it reduces logistics cost for all the configurations. In the fourth and last problem, we permit sharing of mobile equipment among SSLs for loading biomass on tractor-trailers. We develop an efficient Benders decomposition algorithm (BA) to solve this problem. Our model formulation implicitly takes into account transportation of loadout equipment among SSLs. The BA further takes advantage of this feature of our formulation and Benders cuts. We have also proposed two fast approximate methods called Heuristics H1 and H2, both of which exploit the decision hierarchy of the problem. Computational experiments reveal efficacy of the proposed methods. Heuristic H2 generates fast and high quality solutions. However, the BA generates solution of desired accuracy (optimality gap) when not optimal. Our real-life-inspired case study has shown that 1.73–4.13% of cost reduction can be achieved by mobilizing loadout equipment in a BFSC. Also, expensive equipment leads to a greater benefit due to mobilization.

En réponse aux contraintes économiques mais aussi aux évolutions démographique et technologique, le secteur de la santé a commencé à évoluer entraînant dans sa dynamique l'ensemble des établissements de santé les incitant à innover et à se réorganiser. <br />Dans ce travail de recherche, l'intérêt est porté sur les établissements d'hospitalisation à domicile (HAD) en raison du paradoxe qui les caractérisent : bien que créés il y a une cinquantaine d'années, ces établissements se sont révélées, durant cette dernière décennie, comme moyen possible de réduction des dépenses du domaine de la santé tout en satisfaisant une bonne qualité de service. En outre, à la différence des établissements hospitaliers, les problématiques existantes dans les établissements d'HAD n'aiguisent pas suffisamment la curiosité de la communauté du génie industriel en général et celle de la recherche opérationnelle en particulier.<br />Dans cette thèse, nous nous intéressons à trois problématiques distinctes issues du domaine d'HAD. La première concerne l'activité principale des professionnels de santé à savoir la gestion des projets thérapeutiques des patients. Une extension du projet thérapeutique est présentée permettant d'intégrer l'aspect organisationnel des prestations de soins fournissant ainsi un outil d'aide à la coordination des acteurs impliqués dans la prise en charge des patients. A partir de cette étape, il nous a été possible d'avoir une vision multi-projets, et de modéliser de la sorte l'ensemble des fonctions de type gestion des opérations propres à un établissement d'HAD. Cette modélisation émane en partie d'une étude comparative entre quatre établissements d'HAD. En se basant sur les principales fonctions identifiées, une cartographie des décisions est dressée adoptant différents niveaux d'horizons temporels. Cette visibilité sur le système décisionnel nous a éclairé quant aux problématiques critiques intéressant les établissements d'HAD. La dernière problématique porte sur la production et la distribution des médicaments anticancéreux dans le cadre d'une chimiothérapie à domicile. Le problème s'apparente à un problème du voyageur de commerce couplé à un problème d'ordonnancement.

In this thesis, we focus on a forecasting tool, Martingale Model of Forecast Evolution (MMFE), to model the evolution of forecasts in a production-distribution system. Additive form is performed to represent the evolution process. Variance-Covariance (VCV) matrix is defined to express the forecast updates. The selected demand pattern is stationary and it is normally distributed. It follows an Autoregressive Order-1 (AR(1)) model. Two forecasting procedures are selected to compare the MMFE with. These are MA (Moving average) and ES (Exponential smoothing) methods. A production-distribution model is constructed to represent a two-stage supply chain environment. The performance measures considered in the analyses are the total costs, fill rates and forecast accuracy observed in the operation of the production-distribution system. The goal is to demonstrate the importance of good forecasting in supply chain environments.

In this dissertation, we address three different combinatorial optimization problems (COPs), each of which has specific real-life applications. Owning to their specific nature, these problems are different from those discussed in the literature. For each of these problems, we present a mathematical programming formulation, analyze the problem to determine its useful, inherent structural properties, and develop an efficient methodology for its solution by exploiting these properties. The first problem that we address is the course timetabling problem encountered at Virginia Tech. The course timetabling problem for a university is a difficult problem and has been studied by many researchers over the years. As a result, a plethora of models and approaches have been reported in the literature. However, most of these studies have focused on applications pertaining to course scheduling for a single or at most few departments of a university. The sheer size of the university-wide timetabling problem that we address, involving thousands of courses to be scheduled in hundreds of classrooms in each semester, makes it a challenging problem. We employ an appropriate decomposition technique that relies on some inherent structural properties of the problem both during the modeling and algorithmic development phases. We show the superiority of the schedules generated by our methodology over those that are currently being used. Also, our methodology requires only a reasonable amount of computational time in solving this large-size problem. A facility layout problem involving arbitrary-shaped departments is the second problem that we investigate in this dissertation. We designate this problem as the arbitrary-shaped facility layout problem (ASFLP). The ASFLP deals with arranging a given set of departments (facilities, workstations, machines) within the confines of a given floor space, in order to optimize a desired metric, which invariably relates to the material handling cost. The topic of facility planning has been addressed rather extensively in the literature. However, a major limitation of most of the work reported in the literature is that they assume the shape of a department to be a rectangle (or even a square). The approach that relies on approximating an arbitrary-shaped department by a rectangle might result in an unattractive solution. The key research questions for the ASFLP are: (1) how to accurately model the arbitrary-shaped departments, and (2) how to effectively and efficiently determine the desired layout. We present a mixed-integer programming model that maintains the arbitrary shapes of the departments. We use a meta-heuristic to solve the large-size instances of the ASFLP in a reasonable amount of time. The third problem that we investigate is a supply chain scheduling problem. This problem involves two stages of a supply chain, specifically, a manufacturer and one or more customers. The key issue is to achieve an appropriate coordination between the production and distribution functions of the manufacturer so as to minimize the sum of the shipping and job tardiness costs. We, first, address a single customer problem, and then, extend our analysis to the case of multiple customers. For the single-customer problem, we present a polynomial-time algorithm to solve it to optimality. For the multiple-customer problem, we prove that this problem is NP-hard and solve it by appropriately decomposing it into subproblems, one of which is solvable in polynomial time. We propose a branch-and-bound-based methodology for this problem that exploits its structural properties. Results of an extensive computational experimentation are presented that show the following: (1) our algorithms are efficient to use and effective to implement; and (2) significant benefits accrue as a result of integrating the production and distribution functions. / Ph. D.

我國成衣製造商基於「成本」、「貿易障礙」以及「區域經濟興起」三個因素之考量，紛紛將生產基地移至中國大陸、越南、柬埔寨等生產成本低廉地區，或是在北美自由貿易協定（NAFTA）規範下，享有輸美免關稅、免配額優惠之墨西哥等地區，以致於生產基地分散全球各地。加以我成衣外銷以美國為主，原物料供應商來源也分散，我國成衣製造商「客戶」、「生產工廠」、「供應商」分散各地的全球運籌架構於焉成形。 全球運籌架構下成衣製造商如何透過電子化有效彙整訂單資訊、生產資訊以及供料資訊，做出迅速且最有效之生產配置，並且如何掌控訂單進度，快速回應客戶查詢需求，達到顧客滿意，是本研究之主旨。 經過研究瞭解，全球運籌體系下OEM模式的成衣製造商其產銷管理作業電子化關鍵流程在於「產銷協同作業」之執行，其能為成衣製造商帶來「作業面」、「生產面」、「採購面」以及「流程整合面」效益之提升，可以做出最佳「訂單分配」以及能有效「掌握訂單進度」，提升訂單達交率以及快速回應客戶。 / Under consideration of ”Cost”, ”Trading Barrier” and “Local Economics” , our local apparel manufacturers moved their factories to Mainland China, Vietnam , Cambodia in order to lower production cost or to Mexico in order to get tariff-free, quota-free premiums NAFTA give. The States is the major nation we export apparel to, moreover , sources of raw material suppliers are also dispersant. According to the above reasons, our apparel manufacturers operate under the global logistics structures. The keynote of this research is to understand how apparel manufacturers integrate order information, production information and supply information by electronic ways to make the optimal production allocation and to control the order progress to echo clients’ inquiring needs. After researching, the key process of electronic production distribution ways is the “Collaboration”. It can promote the performance on “Operation Side”, “Production Side”, ”Procurement Side” and “Process Integration Side” to let apparel manufacturers to make the optimal order allocation and to control order progress effectively to lift the on-time rate and to fit the quick-response request of clients.

This thesis explores the films produced in the francophone Belgian region of Wallonia as a case study for the configuration of what will be termed a ‘transnational regional’ cinema. The first section of this dynamic is considered in relation to film and cultural policy, which problematizes the possible formation of a clearly delineated regional or ‘national’ cinema. This presupposes a reconfiguring of the transnational along the lines of the regional and the linguistic communities of Belgium, which, in essence, pertains to how production, distribution and exhibition mechanisms function within the devolved region of Wallonia. This section therefore focuses on film policy as well as a macro- and micro- economic analysis of the industry in order to consider the perceived imbalance between Belgian and French cinema. In the second half, the thesis develops a textual analysis of a series of case study films to consider how cultural film policy and francophone Belgian identity is imagined and then imaged on screen. The interplay between the transnational and the regional is then nuanced by the approaches to the ‘transnational regional’ aesthetic. This aesthetic includes the visualization of the rural and urban Walloon landscape in Eldorado (Bouli Lanners, 2008) and Ultranova (Lanners, 2006) and the ‘marked’ regional landscape in Cages (Olivier Masset-Depasse, 2006). The shift in location across the conterminous border with France due to the logic of film funding engenders the approach to the ‘marked’ regional space in Masset-Depasse’s film. The final chapter tracks this aesthetic through to the works of the Dardenne brothers and in particular Le gamin au vélo (Dardenne brothers, 2011) in order to approach the construction of a peripheral spatial formation through corporeal movements. This therefore necessitates a consideration of how the Dardenne brothers’ film chimes with waves of European filmmaking, thereby revealing a regional space that is conceptualized as de-centred.